"US Defends Treatment of Foreign Terror Suspects," by Stephanie Nebehay - Reuters (Geneva), 5 May 2006
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States on Friday defended its treatment of foreign terrorism suspects held abroad, telling a U.N. committee it backed a ban on torture and stressing there had been "relatively few actual cases of abuse."
John Bellinger, legal adviser at the State Department, said the Bush administration was "absolutely committed to uphold its national and international obligations to eradicate torture."
"There are no exceptions to this prohibition," he added.
Lobby groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch this week again accused the United States of mistreating detainees through cruel interrogation methods including "water-boarding" -- a form of mock drowning.
Bellinger, head of the American delegation to the committee against torture, said allegations of U.S. abuse had become so exaggerated as to be "absurd."
"This committee should not lose sight of the fact that these incidents are not systemic," he told the committee of 10 experts as it began a two-day probe of the U.S. record.
It would do a disservice to "focus exclusively on allegations" as "relatively few actual cases of abuse and wrongdoing have occurred in the context of U.S. armed conflict with al Qaeda," he said.
The United States is holding hundreds of al Qaeda and other suspects, arrested since the September 11 attacks in 2001, at U.S.-run detention facilities in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Bellinger said 30 senior American officials from four agencies would do their best to answer the experts' questions fully, but would not comment on intelligence activities.
The committee will examine U.S. compliance with the Convention against Torture for the first time since 2000 -- before September 11 and the United States declared its war on terrorism....
"US Denies Terror Suspect Torture" - BBC News, 5 May 2006
The US has defended its treatment of suspects detained in the war on terror, telling a UN committee that it considers the use of torture as wrong.
US Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Barry Lowenkron told the Committee Against Torture in Geneva that US law prohibited such practices....
In his opening statement, Mr Lowenkron stressed that the US government rejected the use of torture.
"My government's position is clear: US criminal law and treaty obligations prohibit torture. Torture is wrong," he said.
Mr Lowenkron said abuses carried out by US soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail had been "inexcusable, they were indefensible".
But he noted that more than 250 people had been held accountable.
State department legal adviser John Bellinger told the committee the US would answer its questions, but he urged its members "not to believe every allegation".
"When we make mistakes we take corrective measures. Our system is designed to do just that," he said.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Stimson said 120 detainees had died in Iraq and Afghanistan, 29 of whom might have been abused.
He said suspected cases were investigated and "appropriate action taken".
The BBC's defence and security correspondent Rob Watson says the size of the delegation - nearly 30-strong - indicates the determination of the Bush administration to fight back against the numerous allegations over its treatment of terrorism suspects.
But he says it also seems to be an acknowledgement of the damage done to America's standing in the world....
"US Defends Record Before UN Anti-Torture Body" - AFP (Geneva), 5 May 2006
GENEVA (AFP) - The United States launched an emphatic defence of its record on preventing torture and abuse, as the UN's top anti-torture body opened its first public examination of that record since President George W. Bush unleashed a "war on terror".
"US criminal law and treaty obligations prohibit torture and the United States will not engage in it or condone it anywhere," top US human rights official Barry Lowenkron told the 10-member UN Committee on Torture....
However, US officials also highlighted their legal reservations about the reach of the International Convention Against Torture overseen by the UN Committee.
The United States insisted when it signed the treaty that it did not apply to armed conflicts, effectively excluding its activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the "war on terror", from the Convention's scope in US eyes.
Washington was last reviewed by the committee in 2000, well before it implemented tougher measures to detain and interrogate terror suspects after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Most of the initial 59 written questions submitted by the panel dealt with those measures....
Key publics are asking questions about US detention practices at home, too. See:
"Senate Wants Government Opinion on Interrogation," by Liz Sidoti - AP (Washington), 5 May 2006
WASHINGTON - Frustrated by the Bush administration's response to a detainee-treatment law passed last year, a Senate panel wants a legal opinion from the government on exactly what interrogation methods are considered cruel, inhuman or degrading.
The provision, included in a sweeping defense authorization bill the Senate Armed Services Committee approved Thursday, reflects a bipartisan concern by senators that U.S. troops still don't have clear guidelines about what they can and cannot do when trying to extract information from captured enemies.
Congress passed a law last year that banned cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners and sought to standardize interrogation techniques by requiring U.S. officials to follow guidelines in the Army Field Manual, which was in the process of being updated.
But the public release of the manual has been delayed for months, raising concerns among lawmakers that interrogators still don't know explicit limits under the law.
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